Personal Obligations
by krashkart
Summary: Prequel to 'Family Obligations' - Rhade's early days on Seefra


Personal Obligations

_28 months ago _

He was lying face down in the dirt. The last thing he remembered was seeing Louisa go down under the claws and fangs of the Magog, and then there was a flash and light and he was here. Wherever here was. There was a taste of blood in his mouth and a ringing in his ears, but the ringing wasn't loud enough to hide the sound of approaching footsteps. He rolled over to see that he was lying in some sort of alley and that there were a half-dozen men approaching him. He might not have known where he was, but he knew an attempted robbery when he saw it. Especially when he was the intended victim. A few moments later the six men were lying in broken heaps in the alley. He now had four knives and a pair of handguns as well as a number of pieces of paper that appeared to be some type of currency. It was time to figure out where he was.

* * *

_26 months ago_

He had encountered others of his kind here. Not a pride, outcasts. There were no prides here. Dylan had told him about the Orca pride. From his description they were nothing more than a group of pirates. But they took care of each other. The ones here were less than that. They were nothing more than predators preying on anyone they could. Including each other.

* * *

_24 months ago _

If there was a hell Seefra City had to be its basement, and the south side of town its sub-basement. He had signed on as casual labor at the mines, but it had taken him less than two weeks to learn that the only difference between working in the mines and taking a bite out of the muzzle of a handgun while pulling the trigger was how quickly you died. He had also learned that the company that ran the town was a corrupt as a Nightsider politician. His complaint about safety conditions had resulted in him being fired on the spot. Two weeks pay wasn't much, but it would keep him in booze for a while

* * *

_20 months ago _

Where there are humans there is gambling, and people who refuse to pay their gambling debts. There will also be someone who is tasked to collect those debts. He had become a common sight at the company pay lines, collecting a part of the mine workers pay as installments on their debts. Those who refused to pay up received a second visit from him. One that generally resulted in broken bones and an even larger portion of their pay collected. After a few house calls he had no trouble collecting in the pay line. When he was informed that he was expected to continue collecting after the debts had been paid off he decided to seek employment elsewhere, after relieving some of the other collectors of the funds they had taken from the miners.

* * *

_16 months ago _

If pressed for an answer he would have to admit that, other than that the police wore uniforms, he didn't see any difference between the gangs that roamed the town and the company police. Both groups spent the majority of their time bullying the town's inhabitants and extorting money from shopkeepers. He had encountered a pair of policemen in the process of forcing one of the local streetwalkers to give them sex. She was down on her knees before one of them while the other held a gun to the back of her head. He let them live, but only because the woman requested it, stating that killing them would create even more problems for the other working girls. He let her buy him a drink. That night she let him buy her services at a discount.

* * *

_12 months ago _

There were advantages to having a bad reputation. It could create employment opportunities. The gangs claimed to offer the vendors in the market area protection. The local vendors called it extortion. He called it employment. Some of the local vendors had hired him to protect them from their 'protectors.' So far the gangs had steered clear of him. But sooner or later someone would try to see if he was as tough as his reputation said he was, and his reputation would grow a bit darker. His reputation had created another employment opportunity. One of the gangs had tried to hire him. He turned them down.

* * *

_8 months ago _

His ribs hurt. It had seemed simple enough, act as second in a duel. What he hadn't known was that each participant would be bringing in a crowd of supporters. His principle had won the duel, but then his opponent's second had drawn a handgun and began firing. When the fighting was over he had shot two men and disemboweled a third. The next day he met two survivors from the fight. They decided to take up where they had left off the day before and opened fire on him. He left them both dead in the streets, but not before a bullet had grazed his ribs. His side hurt, but it was nothing a few drinks wouldn't take care of.

* * *

4 months ago

They were together again, if together meant in the same system. Together in location, but not in spirit. Each had gone their separate way in the time they had been apart. He supposed he should feel something, anger, sorrow, remorse, but he didn't. He had changed too much for that. The others were practically strangers to him these days. Trance had changed the most. Whatever she had done to save them had damaged her mind. She now had the mind of a small child with no recollection of her life before their exile here on this cesspool. He suspected that she was the lucky one.

* * *

_Last night. _

She was young. Not the youngest girl he had seen working the streets, but young. There was something about her that was different from the other girls though. After a moment he realized what it was. It was her eyes. Unlike most of the girls who worked the streets her eyes weren't the cold eyes of a predator or the dull lifeless ones of someone who had been abused to the point that their soul was a shriveled dead thing. There was still hope and laughter in hers. She must have noticed him staring at her because she made eye contact with him and smiled. The smile actually looked genuine.

"Hi," she said. "I saw you checking me out. You looking for a good time? If you are, I'm Jeri, with an i."


End file.
